This blog features my weekly column called "What's up in the sky". It is published every Saturday in the Ellensburg newspaper, Daily Record (http://www.kvnews.com/). While my postings will be most accurate for Central Washington, readers throughout the northern USA may find something of use.

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Saturday: As
the rock group Journey once thought of singing, “Wheel in the sky keeps on
turnin’. Know where the Dipper’ll be tomorrow.” Every night, the Big Dipper and
Cassiopeia make a wheel in the sky that turns around the North Star in a
counter clockwise direction. Every year on May 3 at 10 p.m., the Big Dipper is
straight overhead and W-shaped Cassiopeia is low on the northern horizon. Every
year on May 4 at 10 p.m., the Big Dipper is straight overhead and W-shaped
Cassiopeia is low on the northern horizon. Every year on May 5 at 10 p.m., the
Big Dipper is straight overhead and W-shaped Cassiopeia is low on the northern
horizon. Every year on May 6 at 10 p.m., well, you get the idea. Of course,
there are subtle charges in the position from night to night. Each northern
constellation moves about one degree counter clockwise from one night to the
next. But this is not going to change their position in the sky drastically
over a few days. So if you know where the Big Dipper is tonight, you DO know
where it’ll be tomorrow. If you are really struggling to understand this
concept, Don’t Stop Believin’ in yourself. Just keep studying Faithfully.

Sunday: Mother’s
Day is a week away. What are you going to get her? Get her a Gem(ma). The star
Gemma, also known as Alphekka, is the brightest star in the constellation
Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown. Gemma, Latin for jewel is the central
gemstone for the crown. It is four fists held upright and at arm’s length above
due east at 10 p.m.

Monday: Makemake
has a moon (E-I-E-I-O). Last week you read the Solar System moon summary in
this column. Or, you used the Solar System moon summary to protect the bottom
of a very small birdcage. Never the less, that summary just became out of date.
This past week, astronomers announced the discovery of a moon around the
distant icy Kuiper Belt object known as Makemake (pronounced MAH-kay-MAH-kay).
Makemake joins Haumea, Eris, and an obscure object called Pluto as the only
Kuiper Belt objects known to have a moon. Of course, many more moons
will be discovered in the outer Solar System. Makemake is too dim for you to
see in the night sky. But you may read about the discovery at https://goo.gl/xO2DcL.

Tuesday: Jupiter
is five fists above the south horizon at 10 p.m.

Wednesday: This weekend, celebrate Mother’s Day with the big mom of the sky,
Virgo. Ancient Greeks and Romans associated this portion of the sky with their
own goddess of the harvest, either Demeter (Greeks) or Ceres (Roman). Demeter was
the mother of Persephone and Ceres was the mother of Proserpina. According to
myth, each of these daughters was abducted causing their mothers great grief.
The first star in Virgo rises in the afternoon. Spica, the bright bluish star
in the constellation rises at 6:30 and is three fists above the south-southeast
horizon at 10 p.m.

Thursday: The
Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks tonight and tomorrow morning. But since this
meteor shower has a fairly broad peak range, there will be many more meteors
than in the typical pre-dawn sky throughout the month of May. Meteor showers
are named after the constellation from which the meteors appear to originate.
The meteors appear to come from a point in the constellation Aquarius near the
star Eta. This point is about one fist above the east horizon at 4 a.m. The
Moon is new tonight so it won’t be lighting the sky and obscuring the dimmer
meteors. So you could be rewarded with many bright, fast meteors. The Eta
Aquarid meteors slam into the Earth at about 40 miles per second. They often
leave a long trail. The Eta Aquarid meteors are small rocks that have broken
off Halley’s Comet. For more information about the Eta Aquarids, go to http://earthsky.org/?p=3954.

Friday: There’s
a triangle just above the southeast sky at 11:30 p.m. The bright planet Mars is
about one fist above the southeast horizon. Antares is a half a fist below
Mars. Saturn is about a fist to the left of the Mars-Antares pairing.

The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky,
go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Saturday: Ah,
the signs of spring. Trees budding. Flowers blooming. Young lovers frolicking.
The Spring Triangle rising. In order of brightness, Arcturus, Spica, and Regulus
form a triangle that rises as the Sun is setting. By 9 a.m., Regulus is five
fists held upright and at arm’s length above due south, Spica is one and a half
fists above the southeast horizon, and Arcturus is three fists above the east
horizon. For the next few months, Jupiter joins the triangle, five fists above
the south-southeast sky.

Sunday: Are
you thirsty when you get up in the morning? If so, that’s okay because the Big
Dipper is positioned to hold water in the morning sky. Look three fists above
the northwest horizon at 5 a.m. You’ll see three stars that make a bent handle
and four stars that make a cup.

Monday: There’s
a trapezoid in the early morning south-southeast sky about one and a half fists
above the horizon. In order of brightness, the Moon, Mars, Saturn, and the star
Antares mark the corners of a four-sided figure with two parallel sides.
Antares and Saturn make up the lower left-hand side. Mars and the Moon, the
upper right side. Follow them over the next hour as the Sun starts to rise.
Determine how bright the sky can be before you can no longer see Mars.

Tuesday: Do
people think you have a magnetic personality? The star Cor Caroli understands
how you feel. Cor Caroli has one of the strongest magnetic fields among main
sequence stars similar to our Sun. This strong magnetic field is thought to
produce large sunspots that cause the brightness of Cor Caroli to vary. Cor
Caroli is nearly straight overhead at 11:30 p.m.

Wednesday: You know Metis and Thebe and Adrastea and Amalthea. Io and
Ganymede and Callisto and Europa. But do you recall? There are 67 Jovian moons
in all. (As of July 2013.) Just 60 years ago, Jupiter was thought to have only
12 moons. But, astronomers are red-nosed with delight that the advent of supersensitive
electronic cameras has caused the number of discovered moons to rapidly
increase. Jupiter’s 67 moons range in size from Ganymede, with a diameter of
5,262 kilometers, to S/2002 J12 and S/2003 J9, with a diameter of only one
kilometer. Our moon has a diameter of 3,475 kilometers. (One kilometer is 0.62
miles.) Saturn is second place in the moon race with 62. Uranus is next with
27. Then comes Neptune with 14, Mars with 2, and Earth with 1. Even dwarf
planets have moons. Pluto has 5, Eris has 1, and Haumea has 2. Eris is an outer
solar system object that was discovered in 2005 and named in September of 2006.
Because astronomers thought it was larger than Pluto, people called it the
tenth planet for a while. (More recent measurements show Eris to be a little
smaller than Pluto.) Haumea, the newest dwarf planet with a moon, was
discovered in 2004 and officially named a dwarf planet on September 17, 2008.
Go to http://goo.gl/Xkoeq for more information about Solar System moons.

Thursday: Its
two small moons, Phobos and Deimos, are not visible in typical backyard
telescopes. But they are an interesting study. The prevailing view among most
astronomers is that they are captured asteroids. That makes sense given Mars’
proximity to the asteroid belt. But resent findings by European astronomers
indicate that Phobos is very porous and made of material similar to the surface
of Mars. This implies that Phobos may consist of chunks of Martian debris that
was blasted off by numerous impacts and gravitationally bound together.
Unfortunately, the Russian Phobos-Grunt probe launched late 2011 to collect
material from Phobos crashed to Earth after malfunctioning. For more
information about this new model of Phobos’ formation, go to http://goo.gl/8sw3rM.

Friday:
Winter must be over because the winter constellations are becoming less
visible. Orion is setting in the west starting at about 9 p.m. At this time,
Orion’s belt is a little more than half a fist above the west horizon and
Betelgeuse is nearly two fists above the west horizon. By mid-May, Orion will
be lost in the glare of the Sun.

The positional
information in this column about stars and planets is typically accurate for
the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky, go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Saturday: The
nighttime stars take little more than an instant to rise. The Moon takers about
two minutes to rise. That’s absolutely speedy compared to the constellation
Virgo, which takes four hours to rise. The first star in Virgo rises at 4:30 in
the afternoon today. Spica, the brightest star in the constellation, rises at
7:30. By 9 p.m., Spica is one fist held upright and at arm’s length above the
southeast horizon.

Sunday: Jupiter
is less than a half a fist above the moon at 10 p.m.

Monday: Hit
the road Mercury. And don’t you come back no more, no more. For a few weeks,
Mercury has been hitting the road and moving away from the Sun in the sky.
Today, Mercury is as far away from the Sun as it will get on the evening half
of this cycle. This is known as its greatest eastern elongation. Mercury is
about a fist above the west-northwest horizon at 6:00 p.m. Over the next few
weeks, Mercury will move toward the Sun in the sky. After it passes in front of
the Sun, it will appear in the morning sky by early June.

Tuesday: Capella
is a half a fist above the north-northeast horizon at 5 a.m.

Wednesday: You’ve seen all of the top 100 lists: top 100 ways to make a
birdhouse, top 100 sushi restaurants in Ellensburg, etc. Now get excited for
tomorrow night’s full Moon by reading about and finding some of the lunar 100
at http://goo.gl/ldGvH6 This list describes
100 interesting landmarks on the Moon that are visible from Earth. They are
listed from easiest to see, starting with the entire moon itself at number 1,
to most difficult (Mare Marginis swirls, anyone?). Stay up all night to binge
watch the moon or just make a few observations a month. It’s your decision.
It’s our moon.

Thursday: Remember
the old saying: April showers bring… meteors. The Lyrid meteor shower peaks
this morning and tomorrow morning. The meteors appear to come from a point to
the right of the bright bluish star Vega in the constellation Lyra the lyre.
This point is about three fists above the east-northeast horizon at midnight
tonight and close to straight overhead near dawn. The best time to look is just
before dawn since that is when the radiant, or point from which the meteors
appear to come, is high in the sky. This year, the Moon is full so the extra
light will obscure all but the brightest meteors. Typically, this is one of the
least interesting major meteor showers of the year. However, it is also one of
the most unpredictable. As recently as 1982, there were 90 meteors visible
during a single hour. In addition, the Lyrid meteor shower has historical
interest because it was one of the first ones observed. Chinese records say
“stars fell like rain” in the shower of 687 B.C. As your Mother might say,
dress warm and sit in a comfortable chair for maximum enjoyment. Meteors are
tiny rocks that hit the Earth and burn up in the atmosphere. For more
information, go to http://goo.gl/j87bVB.

Friday: At midnight tonight, Mars, Saturn, and the star Antares make a small
triangle low in the southeastern sky. Antares, the dimmest of the three is less
than a half a fist above due southeast. Mars, the brightest of the three is
about a half a fist to the upper left of Antares. Saturn is about a fist to the
lower left of Mars.

The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky,
go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Saturday: You
probably didn’t know this but several British New Wave bands were really into
astronomy. Take the band “Dead or Alive” (please). The original lyrics to their
song “You Spin my Round (Like a Record) were thought to be: “ You spin me right
round, baby, right round, like the Whirlpool Galaxy, right round, round,
round.” (Well, that’s what I thought them to be.) The Whirlpool Galaxy was the
first galaxy observed to have a spiral shape. Since then, astronomers have
discovered many galaxies, including our own Milky Way Galaxy, have a spiral
shape. Go to http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0506a/
for more information about the Whirlpool Galaxy. Go to your small telescope to
find the Whirlpool Galaxy in the night sky. It is in the constellation Canes
Venatici, the hunting dogs. At 10 p.m., find Alkaid, the end star of the Big
Dipper handle, six fists above the north-northeast horizon. The Whirlpool
Galaxy is two fingers to the upper right of Alkaid.

Sunday: This
afternoon, you can gather evidence that the Moon moves through the sky with
respect to the background stars and you can prove to yourself that some stars,
other than the Sun, are visible during the day. And you can also observe a
stellar occultation. “What? The occult on a Sunday? That’s sacrilege!” No,
that’s one celestial object blocking another. To occult is to block something.
At about 3 p.m., the Moon will pass between the Earth and the bright star
Aldebaran. First, go out at about 2 p.m. and look at the Moon through a small
telescope or even high quality binoculars. You may be able to see a point of light
to the left of the Moon. That’s Aldebaran; the brightest star in the
constellation Taurus the Bull. At about 2:40, the unlit portion of the Moon
will block Aldebaran. Since that part of the Moon is not lit and can’t be
easily seen from Earth, it will look like Aldebaran just disappears. At about
3:35 p.m., Aldebaran will reappear from behind the upper half of the crescent
Moon.

Monday: Poor
Jupiter. Objects from space just keep bombarding it. On March 17, two amateur
astronomers, unbeknownst to each other, had their cameras aimed at Jupiter when
a brief flash of light appeared on the limb. This is the fifth time such an
impact has been observed in the past ten years. For more information, go to http://goo.gl/6eV7ql.
To make you own Jupiter observations, look four and a half fists above the
southwest horizon at 9 p.m.

Tuesday: The
Lyrid meteor shower peaks next week. But there will be increased meteor
activity for the next two weeks in the vicinity of the constellation Lyre. The
meteors appear to come from a point to the right of the bright bluish star Vega
in the constellation Lyra the lyre. This point is about three fists above the
east-northeast horizon at midnight and close to straight overhead near dawn.

Wednesday: Mercury is one fist above the west horizon at 8:30 p.m.

Thursday: Mars
finally makes its way into the evening (sort of) sky. It is less than a half a
fist above the southeast horizon at midnight. Saturn is visible in the same
spot about 30 minutes later.

Friday: Do
you want to inspire people to celebrate the beauty of the night sky? To raise
awareness of the negative effects of light pollution? Then continue to celebrate
International Dark Sky Week by going to http://goo.gl/xc29se and taking action. I
suggest clicking on “Lighting” and then “Residential/Business Lighting” to see
examples of more effective outdoor lighting. The best lighting for observing
the night sky is also the best light for safety because effective yard lights
focus their energy on the ground, where it is needed, and not up into the sky.

The
positional information in this column about stars and planets is typically
accurate for the entire week. For up to date information about the night sky,
go to http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm.